COMPANY INTERVIEW
TAAT LIFESTYLE & WELLNESS Helping smokers kick the habit by embracing the cigarette experience By Jon Hopkins
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he world of smoking has undergone quite a transformation over the past couple of decades, with cigarettes, cigars and pipes giving partial way to vaping and other next-generation products that more closely align with positive health and lifestyle values. Few people are positioned better than Setti Coscarella to understand this change and assess whether it is here to stay. So firm is his belief in the segment’s potential that he left cigarette industry titan Philip Morris International (PMI) earlier this year to join young start-up Taat Lifestyle & Wellness (CSE:TAAT) as Chief Executive Officer. Coscarella was a top strategist for reduced-risk products (RRPs) at the tobacco giant, where his insight led to initiatives that collectively yielded a fivefold increase in RRP leads and purchases. Taat is focused on hemp-based products, so it should come as no surprise that the group’s Beyond
20 | THE INSPIRATION ISSUE
Tobacco cigarettes feature CBD and CBG, both of which are known to provide a wide range of health benefits. The cigarettes contain no tobacco or nicotine, making them ideal as a tobacco replacement or cessation tool. Public Entrepreneur caught up with Taat’s new boss a few months into the job to find out more. The first question was obvious. You have just moved from the world’s biggest tobacco company to a start-up. Was this a big leap of faith or a no-brainer?
In a lot of ways, this might be considered a leap of faith, as there were the combined risks of giving up the stability and prestige of working at PMI and replacing that role with a position at a brand new company. If one’s modus operandi is to just collect a salary and grow within the parameters of a corporate